dogs are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. farmers harvest fall crops to feed us doctors harvest organs to save us and then there's mitt romney who harvests economies to add it is a big fat wallet and screw us all over america really willing to let this guy

become a harvester in chief of the united states also the national federation of independent businesses is supposed to look out for the little guys the bought and pop shops on main street so why is that group doing the bidding of large corporations instead and purging thousands of eligible voters off the voting rolls isn't enough for some sunshine state conservatives how else are republicans in florida and around the nation trying to steal the election in november. you need to know this do you remember what the american dream used to me i do used to mean working hard keeping your nose clean getting enough of a paycheck so you could raise a family meet all the basic essential is you need be able to take a vacation every now and then and afford a real quality retirement and if you wanted to be really successful climb to the

highest rungs of the american dream used to mean coming up with an idea to start a small business or there was a local shoe store or an appliance shop or repair store used to mean hiring local members of your community to build up that business and eventually passing that business on to your kids remember the main streets in cities across america before reagan they all looked completely different full of their. own unique shops in both teak all employ local workers making good paychecks so that they can spend money at other local stores and keep the local economies thriving that used to be the core of the essential part of the american dream and then something happened that something was reaganomics and specifically changes to our antitrust laws and our tax code that opened the way for corporate predators like bain capital bag a way to transnational corporations that devoured local shops on main street by

undercutting them with cheap labor abroad tax loopholes massive government subsidies look around main streets across america today they all look exactly the same i have their wal-mart's their best buy's their mcdonald's i mean you name the chain they're there you know the wall is those local businesses from yesterday they're gone it was good paychecks that recycled wealth within and throughout the local economy gone and then came the leveraged buyout artists and the hostile takeover hostlers who eventually got so much bad press in the early eighty's after reagan legalized what they did that they changed their industries name to private equity it was the opening for corporate predators who created a new business model where in billions of dollars were made simply by harvesting local companies sucking all the well thought of them and then discarding their bones or selling them for scrap here's one of those predators explaining how it's

done back when he was just getting out of the business in one thousand nine hundred eighty five. bain capital is an investment partnership which was formed to invest in start up companies and ongoing companies then to take an active hand in managing them and hopefully five to eight years later to harvest them at a significant profit. harvest them for a significant profit. he just said that harvesting is usually a term reserved for farmers you know like you're ripping the crops out of the ground or moving the grain of the fruit of value and then like bain did with our middle class workers in our factories throwing everything else away or burning in the fields it's a term used to describe inhumane third world regimes that harvest organ human organs it's a term used to describe the plotlines of movies where aliens harvest humans and it's a term mitt romney used to describe what he would do to local businesses he's not

a job creator he's a prophet harvester and today all that money he's made harvesting the money in what were once our local companies is being used to finance his run for the white house to become the harvester in chief. for more on this i'm pleased to bring on my pappa tonio attorney and host of ring of fire radio pap it's great to see how you doing today doing well great thank you for joining us doesn't this video prove what critics of bain have been saying all along i mean how telling is the word harvest you know tell me used to be responsible investors would buy into a company and they would try to help that company prosper they try to make that company healthy and then what you understand harvest in the business community is a term of art what it means in the business community is you buy the company and then you have its component parts its computers its cars its assets you raid the pension programs of employees who have worked for so long to try to build up equity

in that pension program and then you bankrupt the company after you pay the harvesters their big multi built million dollar bonuses it means to expose extract every living part out of that company the same way that a hyena or a buzzard might extract the last living parts of a sick or dying animal in the in the animal kingdom the way mitt and paul will pick over the bones for example of social security or medicare or they'll harvest that here in america if they're given the chance so it's a term of art everybody understands it he knew what he was saying when you use that when you use that term do you think that this video might get the legs of the his forty seven percent one did you think the average american gets the significance of that that word in the business context or is a little too this fair that i think it is obscure i think it is obscure and i think in the business community it's it is that code though let's go in and write but i think the average person out there simply doesn't understand how that really lands

they don't understand that he's talking about taking my company putting me out of work shipping the jobs overseas selling everything the company is worth taking a big bonus and then leaving the company did they don't understand. that word but it won't get the same kind of legs forty seven percent do you think that you know the president is hammering on the forty seven percent or at least the obama campaign is right now on a number of others are there in that context there's not been so much conversation about bain as there was just say a month ago do you think that it's wise to get back to a conversation about bain that's it seems to me like that's the do we know one of the defining characteristics or moments or personality pieces of mitt romney himself tom there's a concept in advertising in the concept is when the public is just getting sick of listening to a message it means it's just starting to work and there are people say exactly what you're saying right now and that is that the bain issue is such

a great issue people didn't hear it in the to be sick of it because we do know the marketing experts tell us you can't overemphasize you can't oversaturate something as strong as that but at the same time the forty seven percent message seems to be working if you're looking at what's been happening in the last few days past would you say in a way and i don't mean you know metaphysically just just more practically but the forty seven percent comment and mitt romney's history at bain and arguably his history as a guy you know born with a million bucks you know his father gave him a million dollars with his stock when he went off to college you know cetera et cetera just you know as it was it and richard's borne of soldiers his mouth you know that the boy born born on third base and believe he hit a triple there was a great win by richard exactly do you think that that's really in a way kind of all of one fabric. it is but you know the way people assimilate

messages and you learned this from being a trial lawyer that's all i've done for thirty years is they assemble a they assimilate messages in different parts sometimes you don't have to you can you can add add those different parts and then you can bring it together in the closing arguments and hopefully that's what we're going to see when we when we see the debates hopefully we're going to see a big push on that the last couple of weeks because all of those parts deuce do give you the same message and you hit it on the head the public doesn't know exactly why but they do believe that they're saying they're saying this aristocrat this arrogant aristocrat who simply doesn't have anything in common with him a man who has elevators for his cars a man who lives in a thirty thousand square foot home a man who is it was responsible for bain for shipping jobs overseas a man who doesn't care about that forty seven percent a man who wants to harvest corporations all of that culminates the same way you would call him an eight in a trial if you do it right so i'm very optimistic i like the way it's been played

out frankly it just depends on that last big leg and that's to take that sense of who he is and really close on at the last couple of weeks and these last couple weeks are going to be critical speaking of which i want to talk about what's going on sylvania judge is likely to issue an injunction against that state's voter suppression id law. if that happens how big a deal is that and if that doesn't happen how big a deal is that well i think he's going to have to i think the supreme court i think the supreme court embarrassed him they shamed this judge as he should have been if you recall you and i talked about this when it was happening i said this is this is law school one o one this judge should have understood the basic parameters for injunctive relief that there's a permanent irreparable harm in this situation permanent referable harm for seven hundred fifty thousand potential voters where they have a system where they selectively. unnecessarily and caprices flee target parts of

pennsylvania the supreme court said to him you didn't do it right so he's going i think there's going to be some injunctive relief i think when that happens i think it's going to interrupt this whole effort to the point to where simpson is is hugely embarrassed his career from an appellate standpoint is really at risk here because the supreme court is telling us is telling him what casual observers in the law understood and that is there are very specific things you have to look at when you if you weigh the possibility of an injunction and he ignored all of it so today the a.c.l.u. has been parading through the courtroom witnesses who have talked about the endless hurdles that they've had doing they've had to overcome simply to get the right to vote stories of having to go back to him three times to vote where there's a scene where the place is understaffed it's closed at odd hours the employees working in this place where they're supposed to register to vote are confused

they're undertrained that even know what to tell the person who wants to get that voter i.d. and in the end they they have they've only been able to put out nine nine thousand voter i.d. cards and there's about one hundred thousand people who still need to be alive and get people calling into the radio show saying that they live in pennsylvania they showed up and they can't get the forms in english anymore they're gone. we just have thirty seconds here don't we need a federal right to vote in this country the fifteenth one thousand and twenty fourth the twenty sixth the moments all explicitly refer to the right of citizens to vote in the u.s. yet in bush v gore scotto there's no right to vote it can happen if we can finally take back a house a senate in the white house that has to happen before anything meaningful changes before we get through before we get rid of things like citizens united before we get that national right to vote policy that concrete most. do have in place why we know it is

a real mystery yeah well my cabin tony thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you great to see it coming up florida governor rick scott is like the energizer bunny he just keeps going go on and go on at least when it comes to preventing eligible voters from voting in november but believe it or not preventing floridians from voting isn't the only way republicans are trying to steal the sunshines thing. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that many americans call a donor. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot of money from you sir are you know what that is my dear self you don't want to give us a defeat terrorism the only liberal the christian. can secure the borders.

you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because there are profit driven industry that facials that garbage because that breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this but. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

so it looks like small businesses are getting screwed by their main lobbying organization the mask is now slipping off the national federation of independent businesses word of their website the national federation of independent business is the leading small business association representing small and independent businesses nonprofit nonpartisan organization founded in one thousand nine hundred forty three and f.i.b. represents the consensus views of its members in washington and all fifty state

capitols but the center for media democracy on a new website called n.f.i.b. exposed dot org is calling out the n.f.i.b. for what they say it really is a shill for big corporations the website alleges that instead of representing small businesses the n.f.i.b. is actually doing the bidding of large in many cases trans national corporations against the best interests of small independent local businesses now for more on this lisa graves joins me she's an attorney and the executive director at the center for media and democracy lisa welcome back thanks tom thanks for having me thanks for joining us what can we learn from the n.f.i.b. based on the causes that they are lobbying either for or against. well it's pretty amazing that in a five day suggests that it is doing the work of the consensus of the business community to the small businesses because small businesses come in all political

stripes there are a figure you know we're democrats and independents and some republicans are a small business owners and yet if you looked at in the agenda you would see an agenda that largely supports republican causes and republican social issues and political issues including their opposition to the health care reform measures which were supported in part by some pretty big check you said republicans social issues are they getting the things like gay marriage and abortion. well in health care i think that that's a social issue certainly a political issue and so that's that's one of the issues that they were the lead plaintiffs in the challenge to the the american the a c. a the health care reform act passed in two thousand and ten so that's not just an issue for small businesses it's an issue for all americans in terms of access to health care and i think what we've documented is that well into get a lot of checks from a lot of focus around the country they you can pay one hundred eighty five dollars to be a member of your small business and you can get some discounts on travel or other

sorts of benefits they provide for those regular members in families also accepted a couple pretty hefty checks including over a million dollars from karl rove's crossroads operation. thing but part of the thing so karl rove is and then fibs member or a donor i mean how does that is that's an excellent question tom there's no indication that karl rove qualifies as a small business he's making big bucks and bringing in big bucks to influence the elections through both his super pac and his pac and also i went before a nonprofit that he was instrumental involved in and we do know that crossroads g.p.s. gave a huge donation to in fact that one instead looks as it looks that it's donors and sees some small mom and pop shops that one hundred eighty five bucks and they operation like karl rove they gave him well over a million dollars who do you think they're really listening to and that's yes it's

self-evident. do you have any statistics on the partisan breakout of the owners of independents genuine small businesses in america the end said members i mean you know what percentage of them are actually democratic independent republican versus what percentage of the time is in favor of lobbying in a partisan fashion and with which party. well it's quite clear from some of the most recent studies that instead of owners small business owners are appropriate and down along similar lines to the american populace which is pretty much about a third a third a third democrat independent republican and so it's fair to say that a majority of the small business owners in the country are not republicans they're democrats or independents. and yet when you look at in to the gender what you see is an engender that pushes largely republican ideas its intent is a member of the american what is the big change council which we've helped expose

on alec exposed organ which is the subject of an upcoming documentary by bill moyers in favor is part of that organization which is pushing extreme agenda on gun policy on on changing and making it harder for americans to vote on a trade policy in terms of trade policies that ship jobs overseas so out so into his part of alec a longtime member of alec but beyond that in to the past donations its involvement in the electoral campaign through one of its arms indicate that it's largely supporting republican candidates almost all of the time astounding people can learn more about this and said n.f.i.b. exposed or lisa gratian doing great work thank you so much thanks thank you so much . speaking of big politics influencing big bunny influencing politics we now have an idea exactly why chinese casino mogul shelley ate them for adults and some debate is spending more money this election than any american in history to

help mitt romney win because he's trying to derail an investigation that could cost him his fortune in an interview with politico a very candid adelson suggested the reporter mike allen that a mitt romney win would put an end to investigations into adolescence offshore chinese casinos and investigation being conducted right now by the obama justice department adelson is business is under investigation for both money laundering and bribing foreign officials is ryan grim of the huffington post suggests adelson is spending millions of dollars to curry political favor in the united states hoping to fend off charges that he spent millions of dollars to curry political favor an asia oh and adelson does stand to gain a two billion dollars tax cut if romney wins as well this is what our politics has devolved into thanks to citizens united a venue where the rich get richer and they can shield themselves from criminal

investigations want to fix it go to move to a man dot org to put an end to these billionaire shenanigans. it's thursday let's hear geeky jeffrey dahmer and ted bundy two of the most infamous serial killers in american history but what else might they have had in common well according to a new study coming out of australia they both may have had a pretty dysfunctional sense of smell researchers down under a test of a theory that basically says the psychopath the the common personality disorder of serial killers and banks toure's it is characterized by a lack of empathy an anti-social behavior may be linked to an impaired ability to smell to researchers at makerere university in sydney australia studied the old factory or smelling skills of seventy nine people ages nineteen and twenty one who

had been previously diagnosed as non-criminal psychopaths they weren't criminal psychopaths but they were psychopaths in order to test the individual's smelling abilities mama and stevenson used sniffing sticks sixteen different pens they contain various sense like orange coffee and leather to do a found that the study participants had problems identifying the smells and telling them apart from other smells of the individuals who were in the study those who scored the highest in the test of psychopathic traits did the worst on both smelling to us what this study shows is that a portion of the brain associated with psychopath the the orbit of frontal complex also plays some sort of a role in processing smells while the research suggests a link between psychopath and a poor sense of smell the researchers made it clear that just that link alone doesn't mean that anyone with a poor sense of smell is a psychopath having a bad sense of smell can also occur in those with schizophrenia parkinson's and alzheimer's disease as well or just

a girl fashion zinc deficiency so what does this all mean and why is it important well if the study points out knowing that syria. killers and dangerous banks toure's have a poor sense of smell can help detectives police and private equity regulators identify psychopaths serial killers and serial economy destroyers all people who are otherwise incredibly manipulative and deceitful when questioned and therefore hard to identify as psychopaths. thanks. praise the lord having a tattoo as child's play in the worlds of body modification of body as though we're are more unique you are the better and that's the case then people in tokyo are the best of modifying their bodies because they're doing something very very weird it's called getting a bagel it's a type of body modification or a needle is inserted in the forehead so the sailing can fill up and make

a bubble in the forehead skin after about two hours of being attached to a sailing drip and after the skin bottle is large enough a body modification expert then makes an impression using their thumb in the center of the bottle the result shape looks like a bagel which is why they call it a bagel. and since sailing is absorbed by the body that body bagel only lasts for around sixteen hours so you really have to make the best of it before it's gone so will bagel heads of botox injections here in america. somehow i doubt it but i guess only time will tell. you the good the bad and the very very arend know rosalee really good a bronx new york district attorney the bronx d.a.'s office has stopped all

prosecutions of people who were arrested public housing project for trespassing until more information could be gathered why is this a good thing because the majority of those arrested were arrested is a result of new york city's controversial stop and frisk tactics. nearly fifteen percent of all stop and frisk arrests between two thousand and three and two thousand and eleven occurred at public housing complexes where police arrested anyone they thought did. live at the complex there wasn't a guest and kudos to the bronx d.a.'s office for standing up to the n.y.p.d. and their abuse of. the bat wilcoxon ice cream wilcox and the local ice cream shop in livingston wyoming refused to sell or ice cream to a muslim customer earlier this week a muslim customer in nearby sheraton wyoming posted on wilcox ans facebook page asking what flavors of ice cream did not have gelatin in them since they could not eat pork shortly after wilcox's replied to the post said widow deliver outside of

montana certainly not pakistan. wilcox's ignorance thinking that all muslims are pakistan is bad enough but to nine someone who could have been a faithful customer a product just because of the religion. that's just absurd and a very very ugly texas state representative jim murphy murphy is the latest conservative nationwide to push for more aggressive voter purge tactics on monday murphy told think progress that he had his way texas would purge the roll sooner or suspend dollars and here's the real stunner aversive murphy also told thing progress we ought to have a way of someone hasn't voted in some time that you can put on a suspense and you can send them a letter as a you still are you still around. and murphy doesn't know that k.g. which is what they're processes is illegal republican party's been operating under a restraining order for years mr murphy now wants to prevent people from voting who

may not have voted for an election or two it's clear that as president obama's lead continues to grow in the polls nationwide conservatives are doing everything they can to prevent americans from voting so they can rig the election and that is your fear monger. coming up madrid looked like a war zone on monday as protesters took to the streets to say no to spain's continued austerity policies the spanish government went ahead and passed their new austerity budget anyway what the heck is going on in europe.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything is ok. i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture.